The Black Circle Spins On

Musical choices define who we are as individuals — and the ways we listen to music can help define society

That hiss when the needle connects with the vinyl, pregnant with static and anticipation. The mechanical whirling of a compact disc coming to life, it’s secrets laying within. The clicks and whirls of a walkman as it powers on.

We have become too accustomed to instant gratification, and are missing out on those moments where everything is on pause. The real world and our internal world as a machine kicks in. And those mechanical sounds, those very same sounds were that moment, a blink of an eye in length that I would have to decide if I wanted to be a part of the world I disdained, or be free to live in my head.

Music, to me, was always an escape — a way to get out of having to be forcibly social, or have to be a part of uncomfortable silences presented on long train rides, or worse yet, having to listen to the same Disney soundtrack over and over again because your youngest sibling was obsessed. Even in college, I would often find myself with a pair of headphones over my ears and music playing in study rooms, while people were chattering away, piping in only if something relevant could be heard.

As Fiona Apple once said, “I’d rather be in my own head than to deal with people not taking me seriously”.

There are some benefits, of course, to the modern way we consume music: we can fit more songs on the device that delivers music to us; we can put on hours upon hours of music, or different genres onto one simple looking piece of plastic, then we can select further which songs will play and only those songs. It is beautiful and satisfying not having to carry around extra tapes or discs everywhere we go (one of the reasons I got addicted to wearing cargo shorts in my early twenties was because I could store CDs in them; it was the same with my trench coats before that).

Then again there was a joy related to having to warm AA batteries up on camping trips in order to make the Walkman work when the temperature dipped below 50. We can now share instantly a comedy bit or routine with friends instead of having to sit intimately and listen to the horrible plug in speakers the devices of our endless childhoods had. The sound is more clear, more crisp, but we lost something, too, going from digital music on CDs to the compressed, flatter-sounding mp3s and wavs.

I wonder if kids still make mixes in order to impress friends or potential partners. I used to agonize over each song, each placement in the mix, often mixing, burning, listening to it, then re-doing it over and over again. I tried to make sure that no space was left on either side of a cassette, getting as close as I could to each side perfectly selecting the length of the tapes (to those younger members of the audience: you could buy cassettes that had different lengths, between a half hour to an hour on each side). With CDs I’d work my hardest to fill the space, then create a story on the cover sheet, putting different acts or narratives instead of song titles to try and impress some young lass as if the CD was my own personal Opera written just for her.

With friends it was always a matter of building a crescendo of importance in structure to introduce them to what you were listening to.

It was always a big deal getting the tapes, too. A bud in high school made me cassettes with “Punk” music (really punk pop by actual standards) and I’d be introducing others to Post-Grunge acts such as Second Coming (the Seattle band, not to be confused with the Christian Rock band).

This was a form of intimacy, and a vulnerable one. You are opening yourself up for a certain type of rejection. People very much do judge you on your musical tastes, and if you had an eclectic taste this could both hinder, and support, your actions. I’d mix in early Chicago and Queen with V.A.S.T. or Tool in hopes of opening someone’s eyes, and I would judge people by their very definitions of music as well. I once was pursuing a woman in my mid-20’s online until I discovered that she considered Mötley Crüe to be metal…shudders.

I have had a theory since my teen years that it is our musical choices that help us find our tribes in life, how we choose who are friends are, who has our backs. It of course has lessened as I have grown older (in fact my very definition of growing up is singing along to songs that you hated when you were a teen, still hate today, but you just cannot help yourself). How many car rides, just driving around the Tri-Town Area or Fitchburg were spent singing along to local radio stations? How many games did we create for different songs? One favorite was taking turns each person only singing one word, or adding animal noises to the ends of sentences. How many times did we argue over lyrics, in the days before Google?

They stay with you. When those songs come on the radio, I smile and think of friends or girlfriends long out of my life, and the joys of rediscovering the music again. I feel the frustration of not remembering a song’s lyrics or name even though it was “Our Song”.We associate so many memories to the music that was playing in our lives at important moments: our first kiss, our first bad break ups, our first loves.When I meet new people, musical preference comes up. It is a way to test the waters, as well as discover something new. I am fortunate enough to have siblings 20 years younger than I am, and I love seeing their growth as they find the sounds that fit their world the best. And for me and many people my age, it all started with the hiss of the needle touching the vinyl of a parent’s record player.

As Roger Taylor of Queen once wrote, “I’d sit alone and watch your light, My only friend through teenage nights, And everything I had to know,I heard it on my radio” (Radio Gaga).